


Spring.

by Littlenerdyemo



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson, Supernatural, 楽しいムーミン一家 | Moomin (Anime 1990)
Genre: Deity Snufkin, Gen, Pre-Canon, Snufkin is somewhat of an eldritch horror, Snusmumriken | Snufkin Has Paws and a Tail, Teen Winchesters (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29963478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlenerdyemo/pseuds/Littlenerdyemo
Summary: One February, cold and flu-bearing in all of its February glory, Sam and Dean meet a spring god.
Relationships: (Implied but important to the fic), Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Mumintrollet | Moomintroll/Snusmumriken | Snufkin, Sam Winchester & Dean Winchester & Snufkin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Spring.

One February, cold and flu-bearing in all of its February glory, Sam and Dean meet a spring god.

It - he? - is a strange little thing, as gods are wont to be. And what a _little_ thing it is. He stands in the doorway to their rundown rental, his hand still poised to knock. Sam - thirteen, still growing into his weight - is looking down the tip of his hat. He's carrying an enormous pack on his back, looking like a snail, hoisting the entirety of his home on his shoulders.

In front of impossibly small, unreasonably dirty shoes, the salt line lays undisturbed.

"Can I come in?" The god asks, his voice surprisingly deep for a thing his size.

Dean, blotchy faced and barely breathing, stirs from his place on the couch, half-buried underneath a mountain of tissues. He freezes momentarily, eyes roaming over their guest. "Are you a fairy?"

Even before the creature gets any words out, Sam knows that's not quite right. He can just feel the otherworldly energy emanating from him, the surge of something - unidentifiable, undefinable - bubbling under the surface, like thunder waiting to struck.

"No, I'm afraid." He says, amusement coloring his tone. "I'm a Snufkin." He kicks the salt line experimentally.

He moves to take off his hat with a hand that's disconcertingly sharp at the fingertips. "Snufkin." He repeats, nodding once. Now that the brims aren't hiding his shockingly petite figure, Sam can see that he's wearing a wide, green dress, dirty and worn out but surprisingly whole. 

He watches them, wary but not overly concerned. It hits Sam that the door is still open, the snack machine across the hallway illuminated from the inside, casting shadows over the long stretch of carpet.

Something shifts under the Snufkin's dress. "Aren't you going to introduce yourselves?"

"I'm not giving you my real name." Dean barks out. His face strains with effort as he tries to stand up, moving to stand in front of Sam despite his illness.

Dean is seventeen, few months short of the legal school-leaving age, and though Sam had never really expected him to go to college or do normal people things, it was still a shock to see him sleeping in on school days and John being just fine with it. Sam had gotten used to going to school with Dean for his entire life, and getting ready alone in the mornings was a jarring experience.

Four months ago Dean had told their dad that he would rather cover his back during cases than go to school, which at that age meant working towards the SATs he had calmly informed them he had no intention of taking. John had simply nodded, handed him the car keys, and never enrolled him in another school since then.

"That's alright." The Snufkin says. "One can hold quite a decent conversation without it."

When it becomes clear neither of them are going to move, the Snufkin sighs, deflating. "I was going to set up my tent outside, but there's no green for miles. I didn't remember it being this lifeless, last time I've been around these parts." he confesses, sheepish and mulling his hat between his strange hands. "I will give you a song in return. You have my true name. I pose no threat."

Sam takes him in, snail-ish and small and in the half-dark he could be Sam's twin, with the same long nose and round eyes.

"You can come in." He says.

"Thank you," Snufkin says, easily overstepping the carefully constructed salt line.

Dean makes a choked noise at the back of his throat.

"Would you like a Mnem?" Snufkin asks. He takes in the Winchester's wide eyes, before looking down at his feet, breaching the line. "Oh, I see. I'm not too keen on rules, that's all." He grins at them, a thing made entirely out of small, sharp teeth.

"I will not stay for long. I've only been looking for a place where I could get away from the metallic monsters for a few hours. They've gotten so quiet, I can never quite hear them before they arrive." He shudders. "There used to be much fewer. I assume you breed them on purpose now, yes?"

"Metallic monsters?" Dean asks. "You mean cars?"

"Ca-rs?" The Snufkin rolls the unfamiliar word on his tongue. "Yes, your Cars. They made an awful lot of noise."

"What's the last time you've been around?" Sam is still stuck on that part of The Snufkin's speech.

"Last winter." He answers. "Last winter for me. Might have been a bit longer for you, though."

"Things change fast, on this side. Every time I leave, things get so strange over here. It's like your corner of the world moves in leaps and bounds while ours stops to look at the flowers."

"Your sides doesn't have many flowers, anymore." He adds thoughtfully. "Maybe that's why."

"A Menem?" it asks again. Sam knows better than to take food from a pagan creature, but The Snufkin and he have struck a deal. "I appreciate that." he says carefully. (Don't admit to debt owed.) He takes the M&M and holds it in his sweaty palm, feeling the color already starting to bleed onto his skin.

The god grins again.

"Do you have any wood?" he asks, taking out a box of matches the size of his oddly shaped palms. Now that Sam's got a closer look at them, he can tell they're proper paws, covered in fur and ending in long, sharp talons. He doesn't know how he could ever mistake them for hands. "Swapping stories and food around a fire. I will give you your song."

"We appreciate your offer." Dean says, equally-as-careful, but Sam can tell he's intrigued by this strange, otherwordly being.

Huddled around the table, as Snufkin smokes something that smelled like incense and sage out of a strange pipe (they'd had to persuade him away from lighting a real bonfire, on account of the wooden foundations), Snufkin tells them strange, magical stories, about big, furry creatures the likes of which neither of them has ever heard before. "About the size of your dogs, I'd reckon." He says, but when pressed cannot name a specific type.

He tells them about magic, not hex bags and rituals but real, raw magic, the type where you snap your fingers and the earth bows, rivers turn into raspberry juice and winter herself knocks on your door.

Throughout the stories there is one thing he keeps circling back to, a common thread running through them all. It is a boy, one that Snufkin keeps running away from before running right back.

"I need to leave." The spring god says. "But he wants me to stay, so I stay. I can't stay forever; it's not a Snufkin's nature, you see. We're deserters. We weren't made for houses and breakfasts and spoon-collections."

"That's a bullshit reason and a dick move." Dean says. "You said he sleeps through the whole winter anyway. Why don't you leave after he falls asleep? That way he won't have to feel that you left until after."

"That would be too late!" The Snufkin makes a distressed noise that sets Sam's hair on edge. "If I leave too late I'll spend half the winter just finding my way out the valley. I can't leave after winter because winter won't let me leave." 

("She doesn't like me", he confides. "She makes it harder for me to get out. She knows all of my favorite routes.")

"I _need_ to leave. It'll make miserable to stay, and he wouldn't be very happy with me if I wasn't happy with him."

Sam thinks he understands what he says, about leaving. Not really about the wandering; but the going away. The suffocation of staying.

The desire to be able to come back without having to live with the consequences of choosing to go. Selfish, oh so selfish.

"So you go", Sam says. "Even though it hurts him. And he still welcomes you back, because you go back - every time, even though it hurts you."

"Love is like that. It hurts sometimes. That's the price we pay for letting someone else into our heart."

"It isn't", Dean argues hotly. "If it hurts you, you should break it off."

The Snufkin simply sighs, and plays them his song. It makes the shadows dance overhead, transforming him into something long and not even vaguely human.

Two weeks later, Sam takes his first, tentative step into his then-advisors office, and asks about scholarships.

**Author's Note:**

> This thing's been sitting in my notes for months; just the opening, honestly, and I changed that too. Originally they were going to be older, but I felt like twnety-something Dean would shoot first, ask questions later, while seventeen year old Dean would still be somewhat open to wonder. I also played a bit with canon - I'm pretty sure Dean did graduate high school properly, and that he and Sam went to school together up until Sam was around fifteen, but I liked that section and felt like it created a nice juxtaposition with Sam, since for him the little acts of rebellion were school.  
> Snufkin actually has both Sam and Dean elements in him. The inability to settle down, the utter dismissal of laws; that's all very Dean. But I felt like in the grand scheme of things Snufkin's "running away and running right back" to Moomin better reflected the relationship between Sam and Dean. That is not to say they Sam and Dean are romantically involved in any shape of form (wincesties, seriously, dni) but I believe different types of love are still capable of reflecting each other.  
> Comment if you liked this, I would seriously appreciate some feedback:)


End file.
